Jill Shalvis - Instant Attraction

Yeah, maybe they should. Bending his head, he rubbed his jaw to hers. Everything about her felt new for him. New and wild and just a little bit out of his control. Yet somehow she was also slow and steady, more than any presence in his life. Her hair was all around him like a soft, silky cloud, and he closed his eyes and just kept breathing her in like she was his lifeline. “I wanted you all damn day. For days. I wanted you all hot and sweaty and panting my name.”

“Tell me no one’s going to need you for the next few minutes,” she said breathlessly.

A few minutes. That’s the best she thought he had. He had to laugh; then he kissed her, filling himself up with the scent of her shampoo, her warm skin, loving having her soft curves pressed up against him. “This is going to take longer than a few minutes.”

Her glasses fogged, and he pulled them off, getting his mouth on hers again. She opened for him, but he didn’t deepen the kiss, not yet, because the high of the anticipation was flowing through him now, and for the first time in his life, he was enjoying it instead of trying to race it, because it all made some sort of crazy sense.

Being with her was making crazy sense.

He’d been so careful with himself, holding back, not giving anything of himself away. Building defenses one layer at a time.

But she’d stripped those layers away, one at a time, painstakingly, leaving him totally and completely bare.

And still he stood there, holding her. Wanting her. “I plan to take my time with you, Katie.”

Her breath shuddered out. “I don’t think-”

“Perfect, go with that,” he murmured against her mouth, picking her up.

“Your knee-”

“Is fine, now shh. No thinking. Nothing but this. Hope you’re not tired.”

Her breath caught. “It’s going to take that long?”

Not if she kept looking at him like that. So he leaned in, murmured “all night,” and then kissed her, waiting until her eyes fell closed before closing his.

Katie’s heart executed a slow rollover in her chest as it exposed its underbelly.

All night…

All night worked for her. Yes, it did.

“Your room,” Cam murmured huskily in her ear, his arms tightening around her as he carried her across the cabin.

One of her bunny slippers fell off, but he just bent his head and kissed her, a deep, wild kiss, their tongues doing the same glide and dance that her body so desperately wanted. He was a force, she thought dazedly, a force of destruction as it pertained to her heart, one of passion when it came to her soul, and unbearable pleasure for her physical being-

“Oh!” she gasped as she hit the mattress. Before she’d bounced once, Cam had followed her down, his big body sprawled over hers, eyes glittering as he held her tight. “Caught you,” he murmured.

Yeah, he had. She had the feeling he always would, no matter how far she fell.

He was pulling off her clothes, his clothes, and she joined the fray, helping him shove off his outer shell and T-shirt to latch her mouth to his chest. She ran her hands up his smooth, sleek back, touching the tattoo around his biceps, touching everything she could reach. “We made it to a bed,” she murmured. “Finally.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He spread hot kisses along her jaw. “Now let’s make it on the bed…”

With a laugh, she met his mouth with her own, straining to get the rest of his clothes off. She tugged at his pants and he met her halfway, surging up to unbutton them; then she was once again distracted by the sight of that rugged chest. His six-pack abs made her mouth water, but even more amazing was the way the muscles quivered when she ogled him. She realized she finally had the space and the time to explore, and her own body humming at the thought, she pushed him down to the bed.

“Katie-”

“Shh.” She touched her tongue to his hips, traced it over his belly.

“Katie.” His voice sounded a little strangled as she made her way lower. “Don’t-”

She wrapped her fingers around his impressive erection and licked him like a lollipop. “Don’t…?”

“I mean don’t-I don’t want this to be over before I get inside you.”

“We can always start again…” Another lick.

And another deep, rumbling groan from the man sprawled beneath her, breathing hard, a light sheen of sweat coming out on his chest as he slipped his fingers into her hair. “This was supposed to be about you-God-” he choked out when her tongue swirled over the top of him.

“We’ll get to me.” She kissed him again, then gently, slowly sucked him into her mouth.

He jerked, his hips arching up to meet her. His fingers were still tangled in her hair, the tendons in his neck stretched taut, his expression such sheer, hot pleasure that she felt herself go damp just watching him react to her. And then suddenly she was flipped to her back, held there by over six feet of long, lean muscle.

Skin-to-skin, her bare breasts were mashed up to his chest as one of his powerful thighs slid between hers, pressing the heated core of her, ripping a needy little sigh from her. “So damned soft…” Holding her wrists in his hands, he shifted lower, then lower still, his shoulders urging her legs open. He kissed an inner thigh, then the other.

Then in between.

While she lost her mind, he ran his tongue over her, finding what he sought with feather-light strokes, then a little harder, until she twisted against him, her fingers caught in his, as she arched up into his mouth. “Cam-”

“You taste as good as you feel,” he murmured against her. At the next unerring stroke of his tongue, she cried out and her toes curled. At the next stroke, she bucked, but he had her, held her through it as she exploded in a kaleidoscope of sensations. When she opened her eyes, he was kissing her thigh, moving his way up to her belly, a breast…He lifted his head, and then his hand, which had a condom dangling from his fingers, which had her heart taking off again. Together, they struggled to get it on, a process that left him damp and trembling, and her ready to jump him.

When he sank into her with one thrust, she cried out in pleasure, and then again when he cupped the back of her thigh and tugged, opening her up to him even further.

“God, you feel good.” His voice was a thick whisper against her ear. “So goddamn good.”

She thought he felt pretty damn good, too, but she didn’t have the words, not then, and certainly not when he began to move within her. In and out, again, and then again, the fire licking down her body, settling between her legs. “Cam…” Love me.

Lifting his head, he stared into her eyes, his own open to her, open in a way he didn’t usually allow, showing her all he felt.

Helpless against the pull of that, her throat tightened as she strained against him so that they were plastered together, hot, damp skin to hot, damp skin.

She could feel how big he was, how wet she was, and he pushed even deeper within her. “Cam,” she whispered again.

He made a sound, a low, raw, rough sound, and slid a hand between their bodies, gently stroking her where he’d just had his tongue.

When she came again, it was with his body so deeply embedded in hers she didn’t know where she ended and he began, and it didn’t matter. He kissed her through it, his tongue gliding against hers as her body contracted around his, as with one last hard thrust, he followed her over, her name tumbling from his lips.

Cam woke up the next morning wrapped up in a warm, naked woman. Now that’s what he’d been talking about. The first time hadn’t taken, but this time… This time he’d beable to breathe again. He’d be able to go about his day without feeling as if he had a fist around his heart, tightening, squeezing.

Choking him.

And maybe now he’d be able to think about something other than Katie twenty-four/seven. Yeah, he probably wouldn’t even think about last night, how hot it’d been, she’d been, or the sound of her panting out his name, how she gripped him tight when he’d nudged her over the edge…how sexy she’d sounded in the throes.

No, he probably wouldn’t think about that much at all…

He let out a breath, extremely aware of the fact that his body was already there, thinking, hoping, yearning.

Damn.

Maybe one more time…

She opened her eyes and smiled softly, and he rolled her beneath him. Yeah, one more time should do the trick, really nail it home. “God, you feel good.”

“You make me feel good.” She cupped his face, her entire heart in her voice, and when he met her gaze, he was slammed by the look in hers.

Soft.

Dreamy.

Emotional. Oh, Christ, she was looking so damn emotional over him.

“What is it?” she murmured.

It was almost incomprehensible, but his brothers, the knuckle-heads, had been right.

This wasn’t lust.

Not even close.

No, it was something much, much deeper. Horrifyingly deep. Confused, he rolled away from her and slid out of the bed.

“Cam?”

“Yeah, would you look at the time?”

“It’s only seven. I didn’t look at the schedule. You have a trip?”

“I…” He couldn’t remember. He just needed to think this thing through. God, he needed to think, which he’d proved over and over again that he couldn’t manage in her presence.

Out. Get the hell out. He wasn’t proud of it, but that’s all that he could think.

Get out.

He whipped around, looking for his clothes, having never felt more naked in his entire life. He found his snow pants and yanked them on.

No shirt.

No shoes.

He’d probably have hypothermia before he got to his own cabin, and was weighing the odds against it when he felt her hand on his back. Nearly leaping out of his skin, he turned and found her standing in front of him.

Naked.

Beautifully, gloriously naked, except for her glasses, and he had the most ridiculous urge to grab her close and hold on, like he’d never held on to anything in his entire life.

“So,” she said very softly, still standing there, “you’re looking a little panicked.”

“I can’t find my shirt or my shoes.”

She walked over to the foot of the bed and picked up his T-shirt and his outer shell, still entangled since he’d ripped them off together last night. “No comment on the panicked thing?” she asked.

No. Again, he was going with the Fifth. And since she appeared in no hurry to give him his shirt, and also if he didn’t get out of here right this very second he was going to suffocate, he turned and headed to the door without it.

“Cam.”

“Yeah, I’m late. Very late.”

“I see.” Some of the softness went out of her voice, and he was quite certain, with a sudden sick dread, that if he looked into her eyes now, he’d see that the light usually in them, the precious light in those shimmering whiskey depths, would be gone.

“Late for what?” she asked. “The rest of your life?”

Yeah, something like that. Christ, he really was an ass. But knowing it didn’t alleviate one ounce of his sudden, irrational, undeniable panic.

Or the need to run. “I’m sorry,” he said with utter inadequacy.

She didn’t answer. Hating himself, he opened the door; then because he couldn’t stand it, glanced back at her over his shoulder as he did.

His two shirts hit him in the face. Pulling them down, he mumbled “sorry” again and turned to the very bright, sun-shiny morning, which hurt his eyes and hurt his gut. Hurt every damn thing as behind him the door slammed, nearly knocking him down the steps.

“Hey, genius.”

Annie stood on the path. She wasn’t alone. Of course she wasn’t alone, because hey, why should he face this moment of The-Biggest-Most-Stupid-Move-He’d-Ever-Made in private, when he rarely did any of his spectacularly stupid stunts in private?

Nick stood next to Annie, and there was Stone, and oh, perfect, T.J.

And…Riley, their office manager? “You’re back?”

“Not officially,” Riley said. “Just wanted to come by now that we’re back in town and see how your temp was faring, see if she needed anything for these last few days of her time here. But it seems as if you have it-and her…” he said wryly, “handled.”

Cam ignored that and moved down the walk to greet his brother, bracing himself to be questioned and grilled on his year-long absence, maybe hounded about his lack of responsibility during that time, because being the oldest, T.J. had always drilled that home.

But T.J. didn’t do any of that, or even say a word. He simply grabbed Cam and pulled him in.

It had always driven Cam crazy when people so easily and casually touched each other, and yet he found himself wrapping his arms around his brother and holding on.